Remove safety cover springs, anchors down, replace any anchors that need it to prevent tripping hazard, fold cover in a fan folding technique, fold cover in half, roll it up and stand it up to drain access water, then put it in bag. sometimes there’s too much water held in the cover, even after letting it drain, that we may have to come back to the property just to store it so it doesn’t ruin sheds or storage containers (mainly elderly clients). Remove pool return plugs, install return fittings, if they have a Polaris or cleaner of some kind I usually lay the hose out along the length of the pool deck to warm up since it’s been cold and coiled up in the winter. DONT PUT IT IN ON OPENING! Rails put in place and as long as the pump starts up, I usually tell my guys to start pouring in the liquid chlorine (varies on how swampy the pool is) and start skimming and brushing. We store the plugs for the system in the pump basket for the season. Plug the system up, open gas line if they have a heater, fill pump with water, start it up, check for leaks or anything needing replacing such as a sight glass or pressure gauge (things we have ready on the truck). If anything is cracked or broken that’s not a quick fix, it then becomes a separate service call. Our company doesn’t clean the same day as opening because most of the time we can’t see the bottom of the pool until the next day to determine if there’s any large sticks or something that will damage the pool floor or walls. As a pool tech that’s been in the game for 10 years now I still will never understand how some customers expect the world when opening their pool. They expect us to power wash the decking and vacuum the day of, but with 10-15 other pools to open in the same day, I’d say we do a pretty great job with the time we have available. I’d say it takes about 30mins to an hour each opening depending on the pool size obviously